BY D. RAMON ORTEGA Y FRIAS
From the Spanish by L. Solyom.
CHAPTER I.
DOÑA ELENA, DOÑA LUZ, DOÑA ESTRELLA.
Never, either in the times when the Spaniards were ruled by a King who was the best of cavaliers and worst of poets—yet still a poet—a King who paid too much attention to pretty women, and none whatever to affairs of state,—nor yet up to the present time, has any one known or hoped to know the history of the famous Elena and her three daughters who have acquired a fame scarcely inferior to her own. Yet it has become known. We know it, and the reader shall know all that afterwards happened to these three women and to their mother, who made them worthy of the celebrity which they acquired.
Doña Elena used to affirm that she was the widow of an “Alcalde de casa y corte” (a sort of justice of the peace), and that she was able to live decently and at ease on the property consisting of her marriage portion and what her husband had left her; and certainly she did live in this style. She was very devout, went to mass every day, to confession and communion every Sunday, and there was never a religious festival at which she was not present. She received no visitors except a Dominican friar, a very virtuous man; a gentleman who was very rich, old, and belonged to the order of Santiago, who never left the cross except when he went to sleep, and then only because he had another at the head of his bed; and a retired captain, lame and one-eyed, who had once held an important position in the Indies. Neither their age, characters, nor condition could give rise to any suspicion, or give any reason for censure.
The widow had three daughters, grown to womanhood, and brought up in the fear of God, as they must have been with such a mother. It was supposed that they wanted to get married, which was very natural, yet as they never gave any cause for scandal, it was impossible not to recognize their virtue. As far as could be ascertained, the family was as honorable as any other, and led a saintly life, yet the widow and her daughters were looked upon with a certain avoidance, some distrust and some fear. Why? Nobody knew. The suspicions, though apparently unjust, were instinctive.
People persisted in their determination to see something mysterious in the family, and that was enough. When the occasion arises, we shall repeat some of the grave and extraordinary things that were said about them, things touching the miraculous and supernatural; but, as no one could affirm that he had actually seen anything, it was all hearsay, and there was reason to suppose that an evil-disposed, hidden and despicable enemy had spread these reports, in order to harm the widow and her daughters with impunity.
Many people came to this sensible conclusion, but still there was always some doubt left, and a lack of confidence was justifiable because the vox populi might be right, and it has always been considered better to err on the side of prudence than that of daring.